Published: Thursday, March 28, 2013 at 5:58 p.m.

Last Modified: Thursday, March 28, 2013 at 5:58 p.m.

Ocala International Airport's contract air control tower will cease operations April 21.

"It's going to close on the 21st barring any compromise Congress can come up with," Airport Director Matthew Grow said.

Ocala's is one of 149 federal contract towers slated to be closed nationwide by the Federal Aviation Administration in order to cut spending as required by the federal budget sequestration.

"We are engaging our federal delegation," City Manager Matthew Brower said. "We are in communications with the FAA trying to make our case and appeal to their more noble motives."

U.S. Rep. Richard "Rich" Nugent, R-Brooksville, is expected to visit the Ocala Airport on Monday at 4 p.m.

Should the tower close as scheduled, the airport "will remain open to the world," Brower said.

Burt Willis, air traffic manager for Robinson Aviation Inc., which has the contract with the FAA to operate the Ocala tower, said April 21 is a Sunday and the FAA has not told him exactly when the closing will be.

"It could be Saturday night or Sunday morning," Willis said.

Or Sunday night.

Right now, pilots contact the tower on the Common Traffic Advisory Frequency, 119.25. Once the tower closes, pilots will have to shift to the Unicom system and likely use the 123.0 frequency to talk to one another.

On a busy day, Ocala's tower will handle 280 airplane operations. On a slow day, that can drop to 50 to 60 planes, Willis said.

"We are in the middle as far as busy," Willis said, comparing Ocala with operations handled at other contract towers.

There are six employees working the tower, including Willis, who stand to lose their jobs.

The city owns the tower and most of the equipment. Some of the equipment is the FAA's, but Willis said that so far he has been given no direction what is to be done with their property.

Fourteen towers are slated for closure in Florida.

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson visited the Lakeland airport Thursday. In a press release he said, "Congress can't find the estimated $10 million it would take to keep the towers open in Florida, yet the government's still able to pay for a lot of questionable stuff."

Citing Sen. Tom Coburn's annual slam-book on the government wasting taxpayers' money, Nelson pointed to the 2011 list that reported that $10 million was being spent for a remake of Sesame Street for Pakistan. The 2012 list said $24 million in administrative costs were incurred to manage contracts for items no one buys anymore, like typewriters.

"Right now, I'd rather have the money to spend on keeping our airport towers open," Nelson stated in the release. "Look, these regional airports serve not only business and commerce, but also law enforcement, air ambulances and search and rescue operations."

Grow has some concerns, but said the airport will remain safe.

"We have such a diverse fleet of aircraft a control tower is needed," Grow said. "It takes away from safety. It doesn't make the airport unsafe. It takes away from efficiency."

He said everything flies into Ocala, from Boeing 757s carrying sports teams that play at the University of Florida to horse charters and small single-engine aircraft.

"Pilots are well-trained on how to operate out of that type of facility. They will be responsible for their own separation between aircraft. There will be a specific (radio) frequency that they all can communicate on," Grow said.

Ocala's airport operated without a control tower from 1962 until 2010, when the tower, which cost $3 million to build, opened.

Other cities and states also are trying to forestall closings. The Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported earlier this week that airport officials in Punta Gorda, Naples and other cities where contract tower closings are imminent are threatening to sue the FAA to keep them open, and the lawsuit could be filed as early as today.

Saying safety is the primary reason, the Texas Department of Transportation has announced it intends to fund continued service of air traffic controllers at 13 municipal airports when the federal funding goes away.

Grow has said keeping the Ocala tower open could cost the city $50,000 a month.

The sequester, which requires automatic cuts in federal spending that are designed to reduce the federal deficit, went into effect March 1. Discretionary spending will be cut by $85.4 billion in 2013 across the board. Each year from 2014 to 2021 the sequester will cut $87 billion to $92 billion for a total of $109.3 billion.

In early March, FAA proposed closing 189 contract air traffic control towers in order to meet the $637 million cuts required by the sequester, but the FAA decided to keep 24 towers open because their closing would pose a negative impact on the national interest. Another 16 towers will remain open under a "cost share" program because Congressional statute sets aside funds every year for those towers.

"The contract tower program has borne a disproportionate share of closures in the program," Grow said. "The contract tower program is one of the most efficiently run programs in the FAA."

Under the contract control tower program, the FAA hires contractors to operate the towers. Grow said the cost a contract control tower is about one-third the cost of a federally-run tower.

"They are cheaper to build and cheaper to operate, yet the government is going to shut them down," he said.